Building capacity for injury prevention: a process evaluation of a replication of the Cardiff Violence Prevention Programme in the Southeastern USA

Objectives Violence is a major public health problem in the USA. In 2016, more than 1.6 million assault-related injuries were treated in US emergency departments (EDs). Unfortunately, information about the magnitude and patterns of violent incidents is often incomplete and underreported to law enforcement (LE). In an effort to identify more complete information on violence for the development of prevention programme, a cross-sectoral Cardiff Violence Prevention Programme (Cardiff Model) partnership was established at a large, urban ED with a level I trauma designation and local metropolitan LE agency in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area. The Cardiff Model is a promising violence prevention approach that promotes combining injury data from hospitals and LE. The objective was to describe the Cardiff Model implementation and collaboration between hospital and LE partners. Methods The Cardiff Model was replicated in the USA. A process evaluation was conducted by reviewing project materials, nurse surveys and interviews and ED-LE records. Results Cardiff Model replication centred around four activities: (1) collaboration between the hospital and LE to form a community safety partnership locally called the US Injury Prevention Partnership; (2) building hospital capacity for data collection; (3) data aggregation and analysis and (4) developing and implementing violence prevention interventions based on the data. Conclusions The Cardiff Model can be implemented in the USA for sustainable violent injury data surveillance and sharing. Key components include building a strong ED-LE partnership, communicating with each other and hospital staff, engaging in capacity building and sustainability planning.